Accelerating the EMR Transition

The Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution Speeds the Adoption of Electronic Records

Enable your organization’s adoption of an electronic medical record (EMR) with:

• Customizable imaging programs that help you scale back reliance on physical records and make a smooth migration to a fully digital workflow
• Secure, compliant storage that maintains chain-of-custody throughout a record’s lifecycle — while protecting electronic information
• Best-practice workflows and on-demand digital conversion that drive efficiencies and reduce costs

The Paper-to-Digital Dilemma

Driven by internal pressures to reduce the volume of paper medical records stored onsite — and government incentives supporting the adoption of an EMR — healthcare organizations like yours are taking greater steps than ever before to eliminate paper-based processes and adopt programs designed to digitize both new and existing patient records.

However, when making the transition from paper to electronic records, you’ve no doubt encountered considerable challenges related to:

• Managing the redundancies and inconsistencies common in paper-based legacy systems
• Coping with the high costs of document scanning
• Implementing the complex workflows common in a hybrid environment
• Safeguarding growing volumes of electronic records
• Quickly and effectively providing access to the right records throughout the treatment cycle and across the health system
• Maintaining complex retention and destruction schedules that vary by record

At the same time, you must continually monitor your processes to ensure they comply with such key regulatory mandates as HIPAA, while keeping pace with emerging government initiatives like the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

So while the effort can be daunting, making the move to an EMR environment promises to deliver long-term benefits that will have a significant impact on your organization and its patients.

Iron Mountain understands both the challenges and benefits inherent in this process, and knows what it takes to accelerate your transition to an EMR. The Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution helps your organization streamline the conversion of paper records to electronic form by providing customizable imaging options that ensure a cost-effective migration to a fully digital workflow.

"Adopting an electronic medical record system is critical to providing the highest standards of patient care. As a multi-disciplinary, clinically focused hospital, our challenge is to bridge the gap between paper and electronic records to get the right information to our caregivers when they need it most. Iron Mountain’s collaborative approach is successfully preparing the Clinic for an EMR. We have already realized patient care quality benefits from their approach."

— Lori P. Jayne: Director of Health Information Management and Privacy Officer, Lahey Clinic

Powering a Robust EMR Solution

Designed with the express purpose of enabling you to make a cost-effective, smooth transition from paper to electronic records, the Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution helps you take great strides toward the adoption of an EMR by leveraging an impressive blend of people, processes and technologies, including:

• Standardized, best practice-based imaging workflows that ensure security, control and compliance throughout all imaging processes
• Highly trained personnel, high-speed scanners and industry-leading software for fast conversion and high-quality images
• Direct integration with major EMR systems or delivery via secure FTP (SFTP)
• A large footprint of secure local and regional transition centers
• Capabilities that align with all relevant HIPAA guidelines
• Document conversion services that are tailored to your specific operational needs and reduce the amount of paper you have to manage
• Secure, offsite archiving and backup that stores and protects electronic patient data
• A firm chain-of-custody that ensures patient records are protected throughout the entire process
• The experience and best practices gained from scanning over 10 million pages per month at our more than 90 imaging centers

the Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution

The Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution delivers a comprehensive suite of features that work together to help you effectively digitize both new and existing paper records, adopt secure offsite storage and data archiving, tighten the revenue cycle and maintain compliance and chain-of-custody every step of the way.

A flexible, customizable offering, the Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution is based on three imaging options you can leverage in whatever combination best fits your operational requirements:

• Day-Forward Conversion
• Image on Demand™
• Backfile Conversion

In addition, we support the solution with a host of complementary data backup, storage and destruction offerings that can be used as needed, helping you create a truly tailored deployment.

Day-Forward CONVERSION

A key element of the Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution, Day-Forward Conversion helps you build a workflow that seamlessly puts your organization’s newest records into an electronic format. Our experts work closely with your staff to define a plan for automatically digitizing all records not created electronically from a designated date onward — helping you establish a convenient, cost-effective way to streamline processes and minimize future storage requirements and costs.

With Day-Forward Conversion, you can ensure that even after your digital transition has begun, any records that continue to be generated on paper can be quickly scanned and uploaded into your EMR system.

Image on Demand

The Iron Mountain Image on Demand service gives you the flexibility to digitize only what you need, when you need it, and deliver it in a timely manner. Image on Demand enables you to selectively convert only the portions of the patient record required for clinical care, and move just these images to the EMR system. Image on Demand helps you bridge the gap between paper and digital records via a cost-effective method of converting physical records when necessary. As such, Image on Demand enables you to incorporate key patient information into your EMR program on an as-needed basis, while avoiding the costs typically associated with a large-scale conversion initiative.

Backfile CONVERSION

Backfile Conversion, the third imaging capability included in the Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution, allows you to establish a fast, cost-effective program for the bulk conversion of existing records. Our Backfile Conversion process employs a project-based approach that focuses on converting a specific subset of your existing records — such as those generated within the last year only — enabling you to rapidly populate your EMR system while keeping costs under control.

Stream line the Path to a Full EMR

Today, healthcare organizations are ramping up their adoption of digital workflows in order to trim expenses, eliminate inefficiencies, capitalize on the substantial government funds dedicated to support this proposition — and, ultimately, provide enhanced patient care. To realize these goals, healthcare providers need to bridge the gap between paper and electronic records, so they can reduce costs and redundancies and deliver care that is strengthened by the availability of a complete, digital patient record.

With the Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution, you gain a robust set of capabilities that helps you meet these challenges — and enables you to make a smooth, low-cost transition from paper-based processes to a fully electronic workflow tailored to your unique operational needs.

The Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution combines specialized, customizable imaging programs, data backup, archiving services and secure records storage and destruction to form a comprehensive offering that helps you:

• Transition from paper to electronic records with ease and efficiency
• Speed chart completion and coding via rapid, higher-quality imaging
• Compress the revenue cycle
• Enhance patient care
• Preserve chain-of-custody to reduce compliance risks
• Free up valuable in-house space for patient-centric uses

Delivering Revenue Cycle Improvements

In a paper-based world, the revenue cycle follows a sequential process, where the record has to make its way through multiple clinician signoffs — one by one. By creating a centralized electronic record that can be distributed to all necessary parties simultaneously, the Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution shortens the signoff process — enabling the record to reach billing quicker and speeding the receipt of payments.

The Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution delivers a robust blend of capabilities that helps you cost-effectively digitize both new and existing paper records, and protect these documents with secure offsite storage, backup and data archiving.

A truly customizable resource, the EMR Enablement Solution leverages three imaging options to address your unique operational requirements:

• Day-Forward Conversion — Immediate digitization of the most recent paper records.
• Image on Demand — Conversion of paper-based records on an as-needed basis.
• Backfile Conversion — Low-cost, bulk scanning of existing paper records.

In addition, we support the solution with a host of complementary offerings that provide additional support for server backup, image and record storage and destruction of paper records:

• LiveVault® — An automated server backup and recovery solution that simplifies the protection of servers, including those for files, databases and applications.
• Digital Record Center® for Medical Images — A cloud-based solution for storing medical images and other unstructured data that combines low-cost archiving and offsite disaster recovery in a single solution.
• Secure Shredding — A compliant records destruction program that safely and cost-effectively disposes of physical records that have already been scanned.
• Records Storage — A scalable, affordable solution for storing active and archived paper records that complies with federal and state regulations, and ensures safety and accessibility.

ABOUT IRO N MO UNTAIN. Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) provides information management services that help organizations lower the costs, risks and inefficiencies of managing their physical and digital data. Founded in 1951, Iron Mountain manages billions of information assets, including backup and archival data, electronic records, document imaging, business records, secure shredding, and more, for organizations around the world. Visit the company Web site at ironmountain.com for more information.